Stunner in District 97: Democrat Barrett Wins

Speaker of the House Tom Craddick surely must be breaking a sweat now. Last night, in a special election runoff to replace retiring Fort Worth Republican Rep. Anna Mowery, Democrat Dan Barrett defeated Republican Mark M. Shelton with 52% of the vote.

The win brings the Democrats within only five seats of retaking the majority in 150-seat Texas House, and more importantly, could spell doom for the speakership of Craddick, who has become hated in both parties for his autocratic style. Indeed, as reported by the Quorum Report, one of the gloaters was a Republican: Eastland's Jim Keffer, who plans to challenge Craddick for the speaker's chair in 2009.

"Tonight's outcome in the HD97 special election proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that Texas House Speaker Tom Craddick is a sinking ship for the Republican Party of Texas," Keffer said in a statement. "Republicans have now lost 11 districts under Craddick's leadership, and he needs to resign before he sinks the entire Republican majority in the Texas House. Craddick's absolute authority is an abuse of democracy, and the outcome in the HD97 race is proof enough that Texans won't tolerate his dictatorial disregard of House rules any more."

District 97 – which covers the southwest corner of Tarrant County – was thought to be a GOP stronghold. Indeed, after the first round, Barrett got into the runoff with only 32% of the vote, with the remainder split between six Republicans. The Dems clearly had the better get-out-the-vote effort in the runoff: Barrett retained most of the 5,575 voters who showed up for him on Nov. 6, while Shelton actually picked up almost 900 votes, increasing to 4,913 – but supporters of the other Republicans apparently did not return to the polls, including the 2,947 who voted for Craig Goldman and 3,294 for Bob Leonard.

Shelton and Barrett have both filed to run for the full term, which will be decided in November 2008.